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Turnip Soup

A soup made from turnips, onion, butter, flour, milk, and water, seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Turnip Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Pare and slice the turnips, then place them in a pot with the chopped onion and water.

  2. Cook until soft, then pulp through a colander and return to the pot with the cooking water.

Make the roux and milk

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour and cook for 10 minutes while stirring continuously.

  2. Gradually add the milk to the butter and flour mixture, then remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Simmer the turnip puree for 5 minutes after adding salt, cayenne, and chopped parsley.

  2. Stir in the thickened milk, bring to a boil, and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Form the main body of the soup, breaking down into a smooth puree when cooked and pulped.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, and forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk by cooking with the butter into a roux that gives the soup body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, thickened by the flour roux to make the soup rich.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the turnip broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the butter. Cooking the flour in melted butter for the full time removes the raw starchy taste and lets the starch thicken evenly. Stirring constantly prevents scorching and lumps, and adding the milk gradually keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, butter, flour, milk, parsley, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, butter, flour, milk, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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